I have written extensively on the subject of weight management.
In 2002 I published
Mastering Leptin, the first book to explain the science
behind the fat-hormone leptin and what it meant for people
trying to lose weight and prevent disease. My new book, The
Leptin Diet, will be out in December of 2006. I explain in
great detail how hormonal systems in your body manage energy,
how you can extract more energy from less food, how to get on
top of cravings, and how to lose weight without gaining it back
again. We now know that white adipose tissue (stored fat) is a
metabolic organ that communicates to your brain. Most people
struggle because they are operating their bodies without an
owner’s manual.
Based on the
FDA website it is plain to see that they think they are the
authority on accurate weight loss information. The have
convened panels of “experts” and have adopted a gangbuster plan
to
tackle the obesity epidemic. They have concluded that
people eat too many calories and that weight loss is all about
eating less food. The only other possibilities they openly
promote on their weight loss web page are exercise, the drug
Orlistat (which blocks absorption of fat and thus
vital nutrients
from fruits and vegetables), invasive surgery, and
liposuction (a hack job on a metabolic organ). The FDA does
have plenty of expertise overseeing the onset of the obesity
epidemic. And heaven forbid if the casual observer looks at the
waistline of the man running the FDA.
A good diet and exercise program will always be the foundation
of any person’s health plan, especially regarding weight
management. No health professional debates this point and every
American knows this already, including those who are
overweight. What on earth makes the FDA think that lecturing
people to eat less and exercise more will somehow magically
solve the obesity epidemic? Most people that are overweight
know that it increases their risk for diabetes, heart disease,
many forms of cancer, and the early onset of every disease of
aging. So why are people fat and getting fatter?
The FDA Blames You
Yes, the FDA thinks that overweight Americans are weak-spined,
no-willpower individuals who can’t walk by their favorite junk
food without filling up. They know people eat in response to
stress, stuff themselves full, and have no control over meal
portions. The FDA thinks it is time for a publicity campaign to
knock some common sense into obese Americans. Their message is
fairly straightforward: Don’t you realize you are killing
yourself? Don’t you know that obesity is a self-inflicted
disease? It is your faulty decision making and poor choices
that is causing this epidemic.
Big Pharma has been spending billions on obesity drug research
and is chomping at the bit. The quick-fix magic diet pill is
almost on the market. The FDA will be proud to promote the new
wonder drug as soon as they approve it, ignoring the severity of
the risks.
The FDA is the Main Cause of the Obesity Epidemic
The FDA is not alone. There are plenty of other government
agencies and profit-mongering businesses that share the blame
for truly causing the obesity epidemic. However, the FDA’s job
is to protect the American public from harm. Not only have they
failed miserably by allowing exposure of Americans to a variety
of factors that cause obesity, they are themselves the largest
part of the problem. On top of that they are actively
preventing Americans from learning realistic natural options to
help solve the problem.
The FDA is the primary organization responsible for the massive
adulteration of our food supply. The reason Harvey Wiley, M.D.,
started the FDA in 1906 was to get rid of all the preservatives
and processed food that was emerging in the market. His good
efforts to create a truly wholesome food supply
were
undermined every step of the way by the food industry and
the White House. The FDA was taken over by the groups it was
supposed to be regulating. The quality of the food supply has
been in a constantly deteriorating state ever since.
The FDA has led the charge. When the FDA got more power in 1938
one of their first actions was to approve the use of
German-produced, coal-tar derived food coloring chemicals as
food additives. Allowing the intake of such poison over the
course of a lifetime, in combination with thousands of other now
FDA-approved chemical additives, is a crime against humanity.
There is no excuse for it.
The FDA allows and continues to condone the junk food industry’s
intentional perversion of appetite signaling systems with MSG,
aspartame, sweeteners, and other chemicals that directly promote
food addiction. Do you really think Americans would be addicted
to junk food if the FDA didn’t allow addictive chemicals to be
placed in food? The combination of slick advertising and
addictive chemicals has made more than one junk food
organization wealthy. It is a sad day when a child goes down
the aisle of a grocery store singing the jingles of every box of
trash on the shelves.
We’ve known for twenty years, as has the FDA, that trans fats
and refined grains were destroying health, metabolism, and
causing disease. All it took was the FDA making companies state
the amount of trans fats on labels and overnight the junk food
industry starts to change. What took the FDA so long?
The government-sponsored food pyramid, which has also been
making Americans fat for several decades, still thinks it is
acceptable to eat refined grains every day as part of a healthy
diet. Nobody pays any attention to the food pyramid, except the
food industry that uses it is as a guide to make a few billion
easy dollars providing substandard school lunches to our
children, helping to make them fat.
Why is the FDA now allowing
viruses to be sprayed on food? Why is the FDA allowing
genetically modified food that expresses a toxin in every cell
into the food supply? Why is the FDA refusing to label
genetically modified food? Why is the FDA going to allow cloned
animals in the food supply and not label them either? Why does
the FDA allow synthetic growth hormone to be used in animals?
Answer: profits for multi-national food, biotech, and
agribusiness companies. Healthy food for metabolism is not a
priority. In fact, the FDA wants to protect industry by making
sure you can’t identify real food by looking at the label.
The EPA allows all kinds of toxic chemicals to be applied to
food. The recent ten-year study of chemicals by the EPA was
watered down into a
Big Agribusiness-friendly report, since the EPA was
terrified of being sued by the companies that are poisoning
Americans. Industrial pollution is another huge factor that is
destroying metabolism. Government-promoted
fluoride and the
military industry contaminate known as
perchlorate
are ruining the thyroid glands of our citizens by contaminating
our water supply.
Monsanto, one of the companies the FDA is allowing to alter the
food supply with genetically modified organisms, has a wonderful
history. With the help of the FDA they brought the neurotoxin
aspartame to the market. They also poisoned the entire
planet with
metabolism-disrupting PCBs. PCBs, found in almost all human
fat samples, accumulate in stored fat and damage the metabolic
function of white adipose tissue, which is now recognized as a
metabolic organ (like the heart, liver, or kidneys). Many of
the chemicals polluting our environment are known
hormone disrupters that block proper metabolism and
cause obesity.
One of the body’s defense systems against excessive pollution is
to stuff these toxins into white adipose tissue (stored fat) in
an effort to keep them away from the heart, liver, and kidneys.
Guess what? Not only do these toxins damage the white adipose
tissue organ, it is very difficult to break down toxic stored
fat. We know that
PCBs are elevated in the blood as a person tries to lose
weight. Toxicity during dieting is never discussed by the FDA,
yet is a main reason people can’t make stable progress or easily
relapse. In fact, forcing your body to lose weight without
proper detoxification systems in place may cause serious health
problems.
Unfortunately, medications in general simply make people more
toxic. Many drugs, like statins and blood pressure medication,
de-energize people and cause them to gain weight. The FDA sits
by while Eli Lilly makes billions poisoning our children with
the antipsychotic medication Zyprexa, making them
fat and
diabetic. It’s not just environmental pollution making
people fat. It’s also Big Pharma pollution.
The liver uses selenium and sulfur containing enzymes to clear
many toxins, whether pollution or drugs. This pollution-driven
excessive nutritional demand ends up depleting selenium and
sulfur, nutrients that are also required to activate thyroid
hormone so it can work in cells to burn calories properly. This
is one of the major causes of obesity in America today, and the
problem seldom shows up on a thyroid lab test. I wonder what
drug the FDA will promote to correct pollution-induced,
society-wide deficiencies of selenium and sulfur? Rest assured,
the FDA will never tell Americans that obesity is being caused,
in part, by a deficiency of essential nutrients. If they did,
it would only take about two minutes for Americans to figure out
that the Nazi organophosphate chemicals being used on our food
have been depleting the soil of selenium and sulfur for the past
sixty years. And don’t think scientists at the FDA and EPA
haven’t known all these facts for many years.
To find weight loss fraud all the FDA has to do is look in a
mirror, or study their own history.
Supplements Are Safe and Effective Tools
How are individuals supposed to have normal metabolism when key
nutrients are missing? Even worse, the food being ingested is
adulterated with energy-depleting, hormone-disrupting,
neurologically-damaging, toxic substances.
Dietary supplements stand at the forefront of safe and effective
health options to improve metabolism and help offset the
FDA-sponsored adulteration of our food supply. Supplements can
help people improve their production of energy, protect the
liver and digestive tract from ingested toxicity, and can
directly boost the normal and healthy metabolism of insulin and
fat burning.
There are thousands of studies supporting the safe and effective
use of ingredients found in nutritional supplements for weight
management. Its not just one or two nutrients that may help,
there are hundreds of compounds provided by Mother Nature that
assist metabolism. This doesn’t take a degree in rocket science
to figure out. The human species could not have withstood the
challenges of food scarcity without a plethora and abundance of
natural compounds in food that could help metabolism in one way
or another. These compounds are easy to concentrate in
nutritional supplements, and they are very safe.
The FDA gets all
bent
out of shape as soon as anyone suggests nutritional support
can help prevent disease – which it obviously does. The FDA has
placed a gag order on the first amendment, threatening small
companies with extinction. The FDA considers itself
above the rule of law. They selectively knock out the
competition of Big Pharma, whose primary interest is a profit
strategy based on keeping people sick and on a long list of
poisons. The FDA is little more than a bully police force for
hire, operating like the mob. Big Pharma is their biggest
client.
People who think supplements will replace a healthy diet and
exercise are gravely mistaken, as are people who think one
nutritional ingredient or one company’s product will be some
magical weight loss miracle. There are no short cuts for
healthy weight loss. People make choices about diet and
exercise. And they can certainly choose to try a nutritional
product of one kind or another to help their metabolism.
There are hundreds of supplement companies that make products.
Some companies, like mine, are focused on true quality and make
excellent products to assist individuals with weight
management. Other supplement companies are owned by Big Pharma
and have little concern for your health. A primary goal of the
FDA is to put good nutritional companies out of business and to
turn all therapeutic nutrition into a Big Pharma-controlled
industry. This is why I wrote
Fight for Your Health: Exposing the FDA’s Betrayal of America.
Americans that value their health need to see through the spin
and start taking effective action. The FDA weight loss plan
doesn’t begin to address the source of the problems. The FDA
actively attacks natural options that can truly help people.
This is part of a delaying tactic to prepare society for the
next Big Pharma drugs.
It is the job of health professionals to work with individuals
to better manage their weight. The FDA’s job is to protect
society as a whole from danger. It is now widely acknowledged
that the FDA is
inept and unable to protect Americans from the dangers of drugs.
It is equally clear that the FDA has no intention of protecting
Americans from the true causes of obesity.
Changing the food supply into a healthy food supply is a
monumental undertaking. Unless health-conscious Americans
demand true reform, our country will be engulfed by the Big
Pharma bills to pay for all the diseases resulting from the
national epidemic of obesity. This problem is rotting the
fabric of our culture at its foundation. It is as great a
threat to national security as any other issue. It is time for
Congress to “just say no” to Big Pharma money and overhaul the
FDA for the benefit of all health of Americans.
© 2006
Truth in Wellness, LLC - All Rights Reserved
Byron J.
Richards, Founder/Director of
Wellness Resources, is a Board-Certified
Clinical Nutritionist and nationally-renowned
health expert, radio personality, educator, and
author.
Richards
encourages individuals to take charge of their
health, stand up for their health rights, and
not blindly succumb to propaganda from the
vested-interests who profit from keeping
Americans sick. Author of
Mastering Leptin and
Fight for Your Health, Richards is now
joining forces with
health freedom leaders in the U.S. and
throughout the world. Visit his
health blog for up to date happenings.
www.truthinwellness.com
As founder of
Wellness Resources, Inc. of Minneapolis, MN
(since 1985), he has personally developed 75
unique nutraceutical-grade nutritional formulas.
www.wellnessresources.com
Charter Member of
the
International and American Associations of
Clinical Nutritionists (IAACN) (since 1991)
Richards has presented hundreds of educational
classes to health professionals and individuals
who want to take charge of their health!
E-mail: byron@truthinwellness.com
